Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

The trip home started early on Tuesday morning. We bundled all our stuff into the car and began the long drive back to LA.

We stopped in Baker for breakfast and to buy jerky :o) The Burger King had fabulous door handles!

The drive was fairly easy and uneventful, just long! We did online checkin on the bus journey from the car dropoff to the airport :o) Quickly got through security and then flopped in the airport. We wanted to eat but everything was ridiculously expensive and squashed in the eating areas. So I doodled and Chris worked until it was time to board.

Air New Zealand flights are lovely :o) We get served proper food on proper plates with proper cutlery! :o)

They have a great entertainment system which you’re able to start using as soon as you board! No waiting to be in the air and for them to turn it on!

They also have silliness in the bathrooms :o)

We spent most of the flight working. I managed to get all of the images reworked for Doodle Patterns :o) Obviously we decided it was time to sleep just as they started to serve breakfast! But at least it was a very tasty breakfast :o)

Quesadilla with chorizo and scrambled egg! Along with cereal, yogurt, fruit, and warm croissants with jam :o) Yummy! :o)

Then we were back in England and after another very long drive, finally home to the kitties :o)

Monday was our last full day in Vegas :o( We started off with breakfast at Terrible’s… Which was unfortunately terrible :o( We were tempted by their special Presidents’ Day buffet. Should have stuck to the cafe :o(

We had errands to run for much of the day – last minute shopping we needed to do, and making sure we’d played points on the cards we needed to keep active.

To make up for the not so fabulous final day we treated ourselves to a trip to the Cheesecake Factory :o)

The tasty food certainly improved the day :o)

After that we walked through Caesars to their gardens where we got married :o)

Evil Dead on a Saturday is always a very late night (gone 3am!) so we were inevitably a little slow getting up on Sunday. On the bright side this meant we could have wings for a late brunch ;o)

We had Hot with the Parmesan Garlic this time. We were worried we might not get another chance at the latter after the questioning last time! Must remember that I like the hot better than the medium too :o)

It was an absolutely glorious day, the best weather we’d had all holiday! The sun was shining it was 25 degrees and we wanted to be outside! :o) So we drove over to Sunset Park and had a nice wander around.

It was lovely to see so many people out enjoying the sunshine. Families with picnics and using the BBQs. People enjoying sports of all kinds, including “disc golf” which is never seen before :o) We even found a group of LARPers out having fun! :o)

All around people were laughing and having fun and just enjoying the weather :o) To think they get to do this pretty much every Sunday! Very jealous of the weather! ;o)

On our way over to Sam’s Town we stopped at the cactus garden and I photographed the exciting signs of flowering :o)

We did a little gambling and then headed back to the Orleans as I wasn’t feeling too great. We chilled out in the room for a while and then went to the Mexican downstairs for some tasty dinner :o)

We played some Spin Poker with Dream Card and finally had a good win :o)

On Saturday it was time to bid farewell to the view of a wall in the Flamingo and move over to The Orleans. Only on the 9th floor but with a lovely view of the strip :o)

By the time we’d packed, moved hotels and unpacked again we were very hungry! So we went to the Firefly tapas and ate lots of yummy food :o)

After some deliberation we decided that we really wanted to see Evil Dead again tonight, since we’d be missing out on their new show next week and we had so much fun last night! :o) So we went and bought more tickets, hehe :o)

We spent the afternoon gambling at Sam’s Town and then headed back to get changed before the evenings entertainment. The car park was totally packed and rather a nightmare! Ugh!

We stopped at In’n'Out on the way and had more yummy food :o)

Evil Dead was awesome! Obviously! :o) Ended up in almost the same seats as the night before, which was a bit of a shame as I really wanted to be in the centre section. It was good though and we had a great time as always :o)

An even better photo with the cute baby kangaroo and 2 more fabulous tshirts for the collection! :o)

We started the day by finally getting to Hash House for a giant breakfast :o)

Then we headed out to win some chocolates! We started at Gold Coast, then Orleans, and Sam’s Town, before heading down town to El Cortez and then Binions had a cuddly toy! By the end of the gambling we had quite a collection :o)

We didn’t have any dinner reservations so we made sure to turn up just as Tony Roma was opening so we could have some tasty ribs :o)

They forgot our spinach and artichoke dip and by the time we managed to grab a member of staff it kinda ended up as dessert ;o)

The plan for the evening was, obviously, Evil Dead the Musical! :o) We still had some time to kill so we played silly machines and drank cocktails :o)

If you haven’t heard me raving about the Evil Dead before then it’s high time you did! We ended our wedding day there and so it was the obvious choice for Valentines :o) In fact, it might have been the whole reason for booking this trip ;o)

We were in the splatter zone along the side, which gave a different view to normal. Whilst we couldn’t quite see some of the action when they were right at the front, we could see even more of the silliness the actors get up to in the background! :o)

At one point Jake starts attacking the moose, he plays shadow puppets too! A tree dances through a song at the back of the stage. Shelly can often be seen trying to practise the first song. It’s all very silly and the more times we go the more we notice :o)

Thursday we went on a drive out of Vegas to find something you probably wouldn’t expect to see – snow! :o)

There’s actually a ski resort if you’re feeling brave enough to face the single track road up the mountainside… But we decided we didn’t need to get all the way up! ;o)

We were amused by this rather scary warning sign…

Although the slope did look a little icy…

And then we found the pile of destroy sledges…

Suddenly the warning sign seemed serious!!

Unfortunately you’re not allowed to stop anywhere during the winter. All the picnic areas are closed, all the lay-bys declare it a tow away zone dec-mar and so we didn’t get to enjoy the snow where it was thicker and more inviting :o(

There was a pretty place to stop before the snow, where you could take an awesome panorama shot :o)

Over the last few days I’ve been rather ill :o( So we haven’t done much other than eating as that’s about all that I have energy for :o(

Sunday we headed over to Gold Coast to try the dim sum lunch at Ping Pang Pong. Apparently everyone else had the same idea and the queue was long! So we decided to go to Noodle Exchange instead ;o) For $6.99 they do a lunch special with soup, spring roll, rice and a main you choose from a short list. It was all very tasty although Chris’ looked like shark infested custard! :o)

The real reason I’d dragged myself out of bed was for Blizz :o) We walked over to Palms and filled cups with frozen yogurt and tasty toppings :o)

That was me exhausted so we went back to the room and I read for much of the day.

For dinner we walked up to Planet Hollywood for the Spice Market Buffet – we had a groupon which included all you can drink alcohol! Chris’ Diamond card jumped us the long queue and sat in a special area :o) The food was tasty and they had a Mediterranean section which always makes me happy :o)

We had rather a lot of Rose wine with dinner too ;o)

Monday we had rather a slow start so decided to go to the Aria lunch buffet as we’re not often hungry at lunch time! This was a MyVegas freebie which is good as it’s an expensive buffet! The food is all very good but it’s a bit cold in there and a large place which means it’s hard to get back to the table with hot food!

The salad was good though and another Greek section with hummus :o) They also have a huge desert selection and although their bread pudding is too sweet, they have some very tasty mudslide cookies :o)

We stopped at Walgreens for some supplies. Big box tiny half full pot of pills…

We decided to go to the Drive In to see the Lego Movie :o) It was a very sweet film with plenty of giggles and lots of fabulous Lego :o)

Then on Tuesday we started our day with brunch at Terribles. Where we shared a pastrami sandwich and a “sample platter” and discovered that here “sample” means huge piles of food! :o)

We went over to Sam’s Town and did some gambling before heading down to Palazzo to see Panda!

The show was a little crazy ;o) There was a bit of odd audience interaction. No one seemed to understand when the panda was hunting for the map that we were supposed to help! There were giant panda balls to bounce over our heads too! Good distractions whilst they changed the stage around.

The panda suits were cute and the acrobatics were very impressive. Never seen such extreme Diablo before! :o)

The story was a little bizarre, not helped by the lead characters being played by different people to do the different acrobatics! But it was sweet and enjoyable :o)

We finished up the day by trying some non-Hooters wings! They were okay bit not as good ;o)

We started off at the Lion Ranch :o) This was our third trip here! The tiny day old cubs we saw last trip are now 17 weeks old :o)

These three are now 7 months and were in a big sleepy heap! They did eventually wake up and play rough and tumble with each other and their mum :o)

This is one of the 5 brothers and they’re starting to grow manes! Such cute shagginess! :o)

The older lions are still cute too! :o)

We’d walked round many times and figured we’d better go before I insisted on a cub interaction ;o) Not quite so cute when they’re this big – fed till they sleep then you to to sit next one and stroke. I wanted to play with them ;o)

We headed over to Sam’s Town for a cheap buffet and some gambling :o) Fun gambling with multiple 4 of a kinds showing up :o)

Then it was over to Monte Carlo to see Blue Man Group :o) This is a different venue to last time and lots of different sketches. We had front row, right in the middle seats! :o) A little scary with all the audience interaction! Also a little sad we didn’t actually get covered in paint! But a fabulous show :o)

Then we gave into temptation and bought Evil Dead tickets for later that night. So we had to find food to pass the time. We wound up in the cafe in Paris. Diamond card got us a fabulous table and we ordered burgers, which were huge!

Then it was time for Evil Dead!! Yay!! :o) Apparently it doesn’t matter how many times we see it, I’m still super excited by going! :o) Greeter recognised us… Joked about it being our 23rd trip ;o) Sirc recognised us as we were being seated. Sat back in general admission which was very different!

Seeing Kolton play Scotty was great! Took a little getting used to all that filth coming from his mouth as he played such a sweet guy in the last show we saw him in! ;o)

The reason we had to go was for a cute little baby kangaroo! :o) Sirc had him on stage after the interval and we got to pet him and have a photo after the show :o)

We also chatted to Sirc after the show, who was amazed to see us again ;o) He remembered us and offered us tickets to see the “new” show on the day we fly out! Gah! They’re adding extra shows upstairs in the small theatre and apparently it’s going to be really different up there. Can we really rearrange our flights for a show we’ve already seen 5 times?!? ;o)

We went on a mission involving carpets! The casinos here all have amazing carpets and there are a number I haven’t yet visited. So we left the Flamingo and headed down the strip towards the Stratosphere, stopping in casinos along the way!

Casino Royale has some fabulous (though rather dirty and faded!) carpet :o)

The main reason for the expedition was to get down to the Wynn…

And Encore…

They both have awesome carpets! ;o) They also had some good Chinese New Year decorations up…

As we were so far down already we decided to go to the Peppermill for lunch. This has been on our todo list since our first trip and somehow we kept failing! Today was the day we finally made it! :o) It has fabulous decor, all booths, neon lights and lamp shades with flamingos! Also HUGE portions of food! Thankfully I saw other peoples food come before we ordered so we decided to just share one sandwich along with the mixed starter!

What a lot of food! :o)

Another first for me in Vegas, we then walked down to Sahara and caught the monorail! We rode it all the way from one end to the other, and then back to Flamingo where we actually wanted to get off ;o) It gave some good opportunities for photos of the High Roller from a new angle :o)

We went back to the room for a bit of a rest before heading out for more walking! This time in the opposite direction to collect tickets for shows later in the trip :o)

We obviously needed big silly drinks to make the walking more fun ;o)

Apparently extra brain freeze inducing when it’s cold outside too! We walked all the way up to Excalibur and back :o) By the time we returned our drinks were empty and our tummies too! So we attempted to buy pizza, which was apparently hard! I guess pepperoni, mushroom and pineapple is a little odd! We ended up with 2 and a quarter pizzas and it took 40 minutes! A quarter slice of random when they realised our order got lost. Then the Hawaiian they made accidentally instead of our order. Then finally our pizza! Craziness! :o)

Thursday we went out to Lake Las Vegas. I’ve never been out there before and it’s a little bizarre seeing all that water and greenery and breathing fresh air! :o)

We were there for a massage at the Westin hotel. Being February everywhere was rather deserted! There was no one else at the spa!

The massage was amazing! I’ve never had quite such a thorough one before. Seriously relaxed all the way from the top of my head to the tip of my toes! :o) Lovely! :o)

Obviously being in America the spa facilities were all separate, so we just got dressed and left. We had a wander round the hotel trying to find a way out to the lake and failing! So we walked down to it from the car park :o)

Apparently bridges need a warning notice… :o)

If it wasn’t so out of season we could have had a play with the water activities, but there was no one around!

We were rather hungry by this point so using the power of our coupons app we found the nearest food voucher we had. Two for one buffet at Green Valley Ranch. Not somewhere we’ve ever been before!

The buffet was good! Lots of yummy salad and some awesome bread pudding :o)

We did a little shopping after lunch as we’d noticed a Williams Sonoma which is a fabulous kitchen gadgetry shop. We had fun playing “guess what it’s for” on the unlabeled items ;o)

We found a Michaels too for some craft shopping. Apparently Rainbow Loom is still the big craze as you can’t use discount vouchers on them! I got some purple bands and some Inkadinkado stamps (ordered the “gear” on amazon as it was much cheaper!)

We had early dinner reservations at Alizé so we went back to Flamingo to get changed. Alizé is at the top of one of the Palms towers and has an amazing view! :o)

The food was pretty amazing too! :o) I honestly can’t remember what much of it was called ;o) I had French onion soup to start, then “the chicken” followed by a chocolate soufflé :o)

Chris had the foie gras, followed by beef and finished with a chocolate soufflé too :o)

We enjoyed the food arriving covered and then an actual voila as they revealed them together. Then a quick explanation of what everything was before we tucked in :o) The waiters were attentive without being annoying. All in all, great meal with a great view :o)